Ascent
by MyGoldenGlow
Summary: He is sitting next to me. I can feel the heat from his body coming off him in waves. . I want to pull away, but I don’t want to get any closer to Gibbs. Already he is looking at me, annoyed." Post ep for "Semper Fidelis".


**Spoilers for "Semper Fidelis". Ziva's thoughts during the plane ride to Tel Aviv. **

**Ziva POV  
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**Disclaimer: I don't own _anything_. I wish - because then I'd know what is going to happen.  
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He is sitting next to me. I can feel the heat from his body coming off him in waves. He's sweaty but he can't take his jacket off without help, and he knows enough not to ask me to help him. His arm rests in a sling, brushing my elbow occasionally. I want to pull away, but I don't want to get any closer to Gibbs. Already he is looking at me, partly annoyed, partly concerned. If I get any closer, he'll probably yell his concern at the top of his lungs. I don't need that. Not now.

We are making the _aliyah_, the ascent. Traveling to Israel, the closest place to God. I would be excited, if I believed in a God. McGee has "Sniper's Monthly" in his hand, the pages crumpled and torn. But he won't let go. No one is speaking on this flight. As if they somehow know that a single word would disrupt the temporary peace I have built around me. For the first time, I am not hardening my heart. I'm grieving like a proper human being – and I am on a plane to visit the one person in the world who will hate me for it.

I don't want to see him. Our meetings were never something that I looked forward to – and now all I want to do is sit on my couch and stare at the bloodstains on my floor. I want to imagine the fight and wonder what I could have done to prevent it. If I had told Michael to leave, would he? It's too late now for 'what-if's but I can't help but ask them. I have gotten weak. But if being strong means sacrificing all those happy moments I had with him before this, I don't think it's worth it.

Gibbs has probably already gotten a spare key to my place and hired someone to scrub out the bloodstains until not even a trained dog could smell any trace of that fight. The violent end of a violent man. It's poetic, in a way. His life was always so systematic and unemotional – and now his death would be scrubbed out the same way. But I can't stand the thought of removing the staining, even as I know that it must be done. I am in no state to do it – I know that much. Even beginning to erase any trace of him will destroy what little sanity I have left.

It seems wrong, somehow. I know that Mossad will have terminated any evidence of his existence by now. When he died he lost his usefulness, and a paid assassin is never a good thing to have on record. His body is being sent back to Israel with us, and once he is buried, all trace of him will be gone. The blood will be the only thing left to prove that Michael Rivkin visited America to see me. The blood on my floor, and the cast on my partner's arm. And both will soon be gone.

He keeps opening his mouth, like he wants to say something, then closing it again. He spent the first three hours staring directly ahead, not daring to even move his eyes over to my direction. Now he can't seem to stop staring at me. I'm sure he's taking in my black shirt, the bags under my eyes, and the small bulge in my pocket where three tissues lie in wait, for emergency use only. I also have plenty of concealer in my bag, which I plan on using copious amounts of before we land. Still, there is plenty of time before I have to face that hurdle.

I am tempted to tell him to just spit it out already, but the silence in the airplane is pressing in on me, and speaking would mean giving everyone else permission to speak also – something I could not handle. So I say nothing, and pretend that I don't see him struggling to find the perfect phrase to explain what happened and why he's sorry but he isn't.

If he actually manages to find that perfect phrase – the one that has eluded men and women far more poetic and passionate than he – I wonder how I would respond. With silence? grief? anger? If it really was the perfect conveyor of emotions, would I merely accept his apology? I do not think words exist that would make my heart feel anything remotely like friendship with this man again.

But how can I condemn him, when I have killed men in front of their lovers, without so much as a glance back in their direction? I have murdered men and women in front of their spouse, their children, anything to get others to talk. I have killed innocents – not as many as I could have, but more than I should have – and yet still I feel the intense burning fire of hatred course through me when I think of the name "Anthony DiNozzo".

He killed in self-defense. I know both men well enough to know that Michael attacked first. Any outcome of said fight was brought on by Michael and Michael alone. I understand self-preservation. It was preached to me every day and every night of my childhood. My survival instinct was greater than any I have ever felt. That was why Tali died in the bomb and not me. That was why Andrew died instead of me. I may have regrets – I never wanted either of them dead. But the universe is survival of the fittest, and nothing we think will ever change that.

I can't come to grips with the emotions coursing through me. Grief – Michael is dead. Hatred – Tony killed him. Relief – Tony is not dead. Friendship – Tony. Trust – Tony. Distrust – Tony. Love – Michael. Love – Tony.

But I have to sort all of these out in ten hours, or else I risk ruining everything. I have to report Michael's death to my father like a professional agent, not like the lovers he knows we were. I have to be able to work with Tony with the same efficiency as before, although the witty banter is not required for another day. After all, I'm the crazy ninja chick – it only takes me two days to heal.

Israel is the last place I should go right now. Send me to a war zone; tell me to spend forty days and forty nights in a desert with no food or water; but do not tell me to face my father just days after my whole world changed. How do I tell him that the man I can't even stand to look at is completely innocent? How do I face my father, and stand behind my partner, when I can't even stand to be in the same room as him?

If _Aliyah _means to rise, why do I feel like I'm going to hell?

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